Magnolia Pictures via Everett Collection
A brief history of things that are very much like other things, or at least that have been accused of being so:
1831-42: Nikolai Gogol publishes a several works of fiction, including "The Nose," "The Overcoat," and Dead Souls.
1846: Fyodor Dostoevsky publishes Dvoynik (in English: The Double), a novel about a timid, awkward guy who meets his confident, assertive lookalike.
1846: Literary critic Konstantin Aksakov accuses Dostoevsky of lifting from the various works of Gogol's, stating in a review of The Double that "Dostoevsky alters and wholly repeats Gogol's phrases."
1985: Director Terry Gilliam releases Brazil, a film about a tremendous corporation.
2002: Writer José Saramago publishes O Homem Duplicado (in English: The Double), a novel about a timid, awkward guy who meets his confident, assertive lookalike.
2006: Richard Ayoade begins starring on the British sitcom The IT Crowd, about the technological department of a tremendous corporation.
2007: Richard Ayoade stars in an unaired pilot for an American version of The IT Crowd, which was very much just a carbon copy of the original.
2007: America becomes aware of Michael Cera.
2009: America becomes aware of Jesse Eisenberg.
2009: America accuses Jesse Eisenberg of being a carbon copy of Michael Cera.
2010: Michael Cera stars in Youth in Revolt, in which he plays two roles: a timid, awkward guy (in keeping with his off-screen image) and a confident, assertive looklalike.
2010: Jesse Eisenberg stars in The Social Network, a film about a tremendous technological corporation. In the film, supporting cast member Armie Hammer plays two roles, though they are essentially the same character.
2011: Director Michael Brandt releases The Double, a film not at all affiliated with Dostoevsky's novel The Double.
2014: Jake Gyllenhaal stars in enemy Enemy, a film — based on Saramago's novel The Double — in which he plays two roles: a timid, awkward guy and his confident, assertive lookalike.
2014: Now a director, Richard Ayoade releases The Double, a film — based on Dostoevsky's novel The Double — about a tremendous corproation and starring Jesse Eisenberg. In the film, Eisenberg plays two roles: a timid, awkward guy (in keeping with his off screen image) and a confident, assertive lookalike. The first Eisenberg grows to hate the second Eisenberg for stealing his shtick.
2014: Some film critics accuse Ayoade of lifting from Gilliam, likening the dystopian aesthetic to that of Brazil.
2015 and on: Films, stories, and people will continue to work their way into our lives, earning scorn for their similarities to those that came before, be these similarities the result of theft, homage, simple coincidence, or diluted perception.
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There's a new cast member on Community - Jonathan Banks. I couldn't be happier.
Banks is replacing a very well-known person on the show: Chevy Chase. That's not an issue, though since many people still remember him as Mike Ehrmantraut on Breaking Bad. That's his main cachet now. Well, he's playing a slightly more vulnerable version of him in this show - a man who is not afraid to admit that he hasn't given up on his dream of cartooning. His doing this is like Andre Braugher doing Brooklyn Nine-Nine. A usual dramatic actor doing comedy, though Banks has stepped out that zone more by doing shows like Parks &amp; Rec, Two and a Half Men and voiceover work on Axe Cop . He's the second Breaking Bad alumn to make the switch - Betsy Brandt did too. I always like seeing actors do things counter to what they are known for, so when I see them in their regular role, I can remember things like this.
Banks' character, Professor Buzz Hickey, has already had several memorable scenes in his three-episode arc, including trying to find the "Ass-Crack Bandit" and ragging on perpetual student Leonard Rodriguez (Richard Erdman). He's already fit into the mediocrity of the Greendale Community College faculty, though he has enjoyed the cafeteria-line cutting perks that the professors enjoy.
His deadpan style is perfect for the zaniness of the other people on the show, especially with Dean Pelton (Jim Rash). There's even a running joke about his replacing Chase on the show - John Oliver's Professor Ian Duncan called him by Chase's character's name, Pierce, and snarked that he was glad that he got rid of the hairpiece. I hope they keep building him up on the show and maybe give him a really big subplot in a later episode.
It's a pity that Community and Brooklyn Nine-Nine are on separate networks. I would love a crossover between the two shows, where Banks could match up against Braugher. Then again, with how much they command the screen, the film might just be all chewed up.
Still, I'll enjoy this run of Banks on Community for as long as it goes on. I just hope they don't do something like have Hickey get shot and stuffed into a barrel of hydrofluoric acid.
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David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas consists of six stories set in various periods between 1850 and a time far into Earth's post-apocalyptic future. Each segment lives on its own the previous first person account picked up and read by a character in its successor creating connective tissue between each moment in time. The various stories remain intact for Tom Tykwer's (Run Lola Run) Lana Wachowski's and Andy Wachowski's (The Matrix) film adaptation which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. The massive change comes from the interweaving of the book's parts into one three-hour saga — a move that elevates the material and transforms Cloud Atlas in to a work of epic proportions.
Don't be turned off by the runtime — Cloud Atlas moves at lightning pace as it cuts back and forth between its various threads: an American notary sailing the Pacific; a budding musician tasked with transcribing the hummings of an accomplished 1930's composer; a '70s-era investigatory journalist who uncovers a nefarious plot tied to the local nuclear power plant; a book publisher in 2012 who goes on the run from gangsters only to be incarcerated in a nursing home; Sonmi~451 a clone in Neo Seoul who takes on the oppressive government that enslaves her; and a primitive human from the future who teams with one of the few remaining technologically-advanced Earthlings in order to survive. Dense but so was the unfamiliar world of The Matrix. Cloud Atlas has more moving parts than the Wachowskis' seminal sci-fi flick but with additional ambition to boot. Every second is a sight to behold.
The members of the directing trio are known for their visual prowess but Cloud Atlas is a movie about juxtaposition. The art of editing is normally a seamless one — unless someone is really into the craft the cutting of a film is rarely a post-viewing talking point — but Cloud Atlas turns the editor into one of the cast members an obvious player who ties the film together with brilliant cross-cutting and overlapping dialogue. Timothy Cavendish the elderly publisher could be musing on his need to escape and the film will wander to the events of Sonmi~451 or the tortured music apprentice Robert Frobisher also feeling the impulse to run. The details of each world seep into one another but the real joy comes from watching each carefully selected scene fall into place. You never feel lost in Cloud Atlas even when Tykwer and the Wachowskis have infused three action sequences — a gritty car chase in the '70s a kinetic chase through Neo Seoul and a foot race through the forests of future millennia — into one extended set piece. This is a unified film with distinct parts echoing the themes of human interconnectivity.
The biggest treat is watching Cloud Atlas' ensemble tackle the diverse array of characters sprinkled into the stories. No film in recent memory has afforded a cast this type of opportunity yet another form of juxtaposition that wows. Within a few seconds Tom Hanks will go from near-neanderthal to British gangster to wily 19th century doctor. Halle Berry Hugh Grant Jim Sturgess Jim Broadbent Ben Whishaw Hugo Weaving and Susan Sarandon play the same game taking on roles of different sexes races and the like. (Weaving as an evil nurse returning to his Priscilla Queen of the Desert cross-dressing roots is mind-blowing.) The cast's dedication to inhabiting their roles on every level helps us quickly understand the worlds. We know it's Halle Berry behind the fair skinned wife of the lunatic composer but she's never playing Halle Berry. Even when the actors are playing variations on themselves they're glowing with the film's overall epic feel. Jim Broadbent's wickedly funny modern segment a Tykwer creation that packs a particularly German sense of humor is on a smaller scale than the rest of the film but the actor never dials it down. Every story character and scene in Cloud Atlas commits to a style. That diversity keeps the swirling maelstrom of a movie in check.
Cloud Atlas poses big questions without losing track of its human element the characters at the heart of each story. A slower moment or two may have helped the Wachowskis' and Tykwer's film to hit a powerful emotional chord but the finished product still proves mainstream movies can ask questions while laying over explosive action scenes. This year there won't be a bigger movie in terms of scope in terms of ideas and in terms of heart than Cloud Atlas.
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The remake of Total Recall never escapes the shadow of its Arnold Schwarzenegger-led predecessor — and strangely it feels like a choice. With a script that's nearly beat-for-beat the original film Total Recall plods along with enhanced special effects that bring to life an expansive sci-fi world and action scenes constructed to send eyes flipping backwards into skulls. Filling the cracks of the fractured film is a story that without knowledge of the Philip K. Dick adaptation's previous incarnation is barely decipherable. Those who haven't seen Paul Verhoeven's 1990 Total Recall? Time to get a few memory implants. 2012 Recall makes little sense with the cinematic foundation but it does zero favors to those out of the know.
Colin Farrell takes over duties from Schwarzenegger as Douglas Quaid a down-on-his-luck factory worker hoping to escape his stagnate existence with a boost from Rekall a company capable of engineering fake memories. Quaid calls the damp slums of "The Colony" home (one of two inhabitable parts of Earth) but he dreams of moving to the New Federation of Britain a pristine metropolis on the other side of the planet. When the futuristic treatment goes awry — caused by previously existing memories of our blue collar hero's supposed past life as a secret agent — Quaid emerges from Rekall with lethal power hidden under his mild-mannered persona. He quickly goes on the run escaping squads of soldiers robots and his assassin "wife " Lori (Kate Beckinsale) all hot on his tail. Total Recall turns into one long chase scene as Quaid unravels the mystery of his erased memories.
But when it comes to answers and heady sci-fi Total Recall falls short. Farrell isn't a hulking action star like Schwarzenegger but he's a performer that can sensitively explore any human crisis big or small. Director Len Wiseman (Underworld Live Free or Die Hard) never gives his leading man that opportunity. Farrell makes the best of the films occasional slow moment but the weight of Recall's mindf**k is suffocated in a series of fist fights hovercar pile-ups and foot chases pulled straight out of the latest platformer video game (a sequence that sends Quaid running across the geometric rooftop architecture of The Colony looks straight out of Super Mario Bros.). When Jessica Biel as Quaid's former romantic interest Melina and Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston as the power-hungry politico Cohaagen are finally woven into Farrell's feature length 50 yard dash it's too late — the movie isn't making sense and it's not about to regardless of the charm on screen.
The action is slick and the futuristic design is impeccable but without any time devoted to building the stakes Total Recall feels more like a HDTV demo than a thrilling blockbuster. The movie's greatest innovation is the central set piece "The Fall " an elevator that travels between the two cities at rapid speed. The towering keystone of mankind is a marvel but we never get to see it explore it or feel its implications on the world around it. Instead it's cemented as a CG background behind the craze of Farrell shooting his way through hoards of bad guys.
Science fiction more than any other dramatic genre twist demands attention to the details. New worlds aren't built on broad strokes. But Total Recall tries to get away with it in hopes that audiences will recall their own movie knowledge to support its faulty logic. The movie repeatedly prompts viewers to think back to the 1990 version with blatant fan service that's absolutely nonsensical in this restructured version (no longer does Quaid go to Mars but there's still a three-breasted alien?). The callbacks may have given Total Recall a "been there done that" feel but rarely is it coherent enough to get that far. By the closing credits you'll be struggling to remember what you spent the last two hours watching.
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A kids’ movie without the cheeky jokes for adults is like a big juicy BLT without the B… or the T. Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted may have a title that sounds like it was made up in a cartoon sequel laboratory but when it comes to serving up laughs just think of the film as a BLT with enough extra bacon to satisfy even the wildest of animals — or even a parent with a gaggle of tots in tow. Yes even with that whole "Afro Circus" nonsense.
It’s not often that we find exhaustively franchised films like the Madagascar set that still work after almost seven years. Despite being spun off into TV shows and Christmas specials in addition to its big screen adventures the series has not only maintained its momentum it has maintained the part we were pleasantly surprised by the first time around: great jokes.
In this third installment of the series – the trilogy-maker if you will – directing duo Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath add Conrad Vernon (director Monsters Vs. Aliens) to the helm as our trusty gang swings back into action. Alex the lion (Ben Stiller) Marty the zebra (Chris Rock) Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) are stuck in Africa after the hullaballoo of Madagascar 2 and they’ll do anything to get back to their beloved New York. Just a hop skip and a jump away in Monte Carlo the penguins are doing their usual greedy schtick but the zoo animals catch up with them just in time to catch the eye of the sinister animal control stickler Captain Dubois (Frances McDormand). And just like that the practically super human captain is chasing them through Monte Carlo and the rest of Europe in hopes of planting Alex’s perfectly coifed lion head on her wall of prized animals.
Luckily for pint-sized viewers Dubois’ terrifying presence is balanced out by her sheer inhuman strength uncanny guiles and Stretch Armstrong flexibility (ah the wonder of cartoons) as well as Alex’s escape plan: the New Yorkers run away with the European circus. While Dubois’ terrifying Doberman-like presence looms over the entire film a sense of levity (which is a word the kiddies might learn from Stiller’s eloquent lion) comes from the plan for salvation in which the circus animals and the zoo animals band together to revamp the circus and catch the eye of a big-time American agent. Sure the pacing throughout the first act is practically nonexistent running like a stampede through the jungle but by the time we're palling around under the big top the film finds its footing.
The visual splendor of the film (and man is there a champion size serving of it) the magnificent danger and suspense is enhanced to great effect by the addition of 3D technology – and not once is there a gratuitous beverage or desperate Crocodile Dundee knife waved in our faces to prove its worth. The caveat is that the soundtrack employs a certain infectious Katy Perry ditty at the height of the 3D spectacular so parents get ready to hear that on repeat until the leaves turn yellow.
But visual delights and adventurous zoo animals aside Madagascar 3’s real strength is in its script. With the addition of Noah Baumbach (Greenberg The Squid and the Whale) to the screenwriting team the script is infused with a heightened level of almost sarcastic gravitas – a welcome addition to the characteristically adult-friendly reference-heavy humor of the other Madagascar films. To bring the script to life Paramount enlisted three more than able actors: Vitaly the Siberian tiger (Bryan Cranston) Gia the Leopard (Jessica Chastain) and Stefano the Italian Sealion (Martin Short). With all three actors draped in European accents it might take viewers a minute to realize that the cantankerous tiger is one and the same as the man who plays an Albuquerque drug lord on Breaking Bad but that makes it that much sweeter to hear him utter slant-curse words like “Bolshevik” with his usual gusto.
Between the laughs the terror of McDormand’s Captain Dubois and the breathtaking virtual European tour the Zoosters’ accidental vacation is one worth taking. Madagascar 3 is by no means an insta-classic but it’s a perfectly suited for your Summer-at-the-movies oasis.

How do you take a film that touts its “mind-bending twist” seriously when it divulges said plot device in its first half hour? Further why would you give that information away in the sole featurette your Blu-ray has to offer when it’s quite possible that it would spoil the experience for the audience? These are just a few of the questions that rummaging through The Double Blu-ray brings to mind.
The film directed by Wanted co-writer Michael Brandt is pretty standard as far as spy thrillers go: a US Senator is killed by a vicious Cold War era assassin known only as Cassius. The CIA agent who hunted him throughout his career is called back in by the Company to work with a young hotshot analyst to track the murderer and put him down for good. But things aren’t as they seem (as they always are in these flicks) and we quickly learn that Cassius is closer to our heroes than either of them ever would’ve believed.
To be blunt we’ve run through this premise before in countless espionage films. Brandt and his partner Derek Haas literally offer nothing original in their script which is polluted with choppy comic-book style dialogue and as previously stated a dimwitted plot shift that stops the suspense dead in its tracks. As a first time filmmaker Brandt struggles with maintaining a consistent tone using a cheesy '80s rock score at dramatic turns in the story and flashbacks that attempt to expand its scope but reveal more than they should instead. Making matters worse are the phoned-in performances from the leads – Topher Grace and Richard Gere – neither whom are believable as spooks in the first place. Only Stephen Moyer in a brief but meaningful turn as an incarcerated accomplice of Cassius is exciting enough to keep you interested in what’s happening on the screen (I’d rather watch a full-length feature about the exploits of his character than anything with Gere or Grace after this).
With just a short making-of featurette that includes interviews with Brandt Haas and the three fore-mentioned cast members (which also gives the twist away…) there’s no redeeming value in this disc whatsoever. I’m thinking that all parties involved would just like to forget that The Double ever happened.

A new trailer has surfaced online for The Double, a new thriller about a retired CIA operative (Richard Gere) who partners with a rookie FBI agent (Topher Grace) to solve the mystery of a U.S. Senator's murder. It marks the directorial debut of Michael Brandt, who co-wrote the film along with Derek Haas. The duo's previous screenwriting credits include 3:10 to Yuma, Wanted, and 2 Fast 2 Furious, which suggests they are, if anything, versatile.
Check out the new trailer, but only if you enjoy having seemingly every major plot detail revealed to you:
The Double opens September 23.
Source: ComingSoon

When screenwriter Michael Brandt got a deal to bring he and his partner Derek Haas' espionage script The Double to cinematic life, I don't think he counted on roping in the kind of star power that he has been able to. First came the big shots - Richard Gere and Topher Grace - followed by True Blood's Stephen Moyer. As if that wasn't enough to make the project sound tantalizing, today the first-time director has landed a double dose of smokin' females.
Heat Vision reports that Castle's Stana Katic and Cloverfield's Odette Yustman will work on the film, which follows a retired CIA operative (Gere) and a young FBI agent (Grace) who unravel the mystery of a senator's murder, with all signs pointing to a notorious Soviet assassin (Moyer). Katic plays a feisty Russian prostitute who fiercely protects key information while Yustman has the role of Grace's character's wife, a strong woman who raises a family while coping with her husband's Bureau career.
Hyde Park is producing the feature, which will begin shooting in Detroit on June 21st. Though the premise sounds like nothing I haven't seen before, I'm into the cast so far (minus Grace). Both ladies should add a welcome dynamic to an otherwise contrived story.
Source: Heat Vision

Stephen Moyer is biting into two film roles, the Heat Vision blog reports.
The True Blood star will appear opposite Richard Gere and Topher Grace in Hyde Park thriller The Double and will also saddle up for The Big Valley with Jessica Lange.
Per Heat Vision, Double is the directorial debut of writer Michael Brandt and will see Moyer as a Russian spy in a story that centers on a retired CIA operative forced to partner with a young FBI agent to hunt down the killer of a senator in Washington.
Next month, Moyer will head to Louisiana for Valley, a big-screen adaptation on the 1960s ABC series that starred Barbara Stanwyck, Linda Evans and Lee Majors.
Moyer will play Jarrod Barkley, the lawyer in the family who represents ranchers fighting to keep their land from being taken by railroad companies. The role was created by Richard Long on the TV show.
Daniel Adams wrote the screenplay and is directing.
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